


come back for me

by LonesomeDreamer



Series: the adventures of an evil eye bastard and his lonely sea captain husband [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, LonelyEyes, M/M, and then i just started hopping around, it's vaguely ooc, season four spoilers, the first few i wrote were in like vague chronological order, this is actually the second tma fic i ever wrote, uhhhh this is honestly more heavily romantic than i thought it would be, woo what fun, yeah anyway jonah and peter care too much about each other in this one, yet another tma fic i wrote early on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:54:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23166568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonesomeDreamer/pseuds/LonesomeDreamer
Summary: Jonah Magnus finds out that Peter Lukas has died. In this case, though, Jonah unravels a little more than anyone expected him to.
Relationships: Peter Lukas/Jonah Magnus
Series: the adventures of an evil eye bastard and his lonely sea captain husband [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664716
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	come back for me

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, okay, I know this is like. Absolutely not in character for either man but it was late and I was in a mood and this happened. This is the only story in this series that is more of an alternate storyline to the rest of what I've written, but this is where it would fit chronologically amongst the others. As you can see, I do a great job of being consistent with my storylines.

_He’s gone, you know._

The Beholding echoed in his mind; he let the thought fall flat for several minutes, busying himself with his last few papers, before realization seemed to hit him and his face drained of the little color it had.

“...Peter?”

The Beholding gave him no response, which was a response in and of itself. There was no familiar dog-whistle static to fill his ears; no fog came drifting into his vision as it so often had before.

“He can’t be,” Jonah whispered, closing his eyes as if their burning bright blue would show him something he didn’t want to see. “He—”

But he wasn’t stupid. If anything, he had learned that over his time on earth. The Beholding was never wrong with this sort of thing—never.

The chill of the Lonely, the familiar static and fog of the man he’d been so in love—or whatever—with, seemed to fill his entire being within the space of a trivial second and a half. He let himself go, let the fog envelop his body, closed his ears to the shrieking static and with the strongest bit of his power forced the Eye to unwillingly bend to the will of the Lonely as it absorbed him wholly.

He found himself amongst the waves, able to stand on his feet but unable to see the shore and unknowing of where Peter—well, Peter’s body—was. Cold water lapped against his legs, the dampness seeping into his soul; it was the first time for Jonah that the water in the Lonely had ever had a sensation or feel to it.

He became distinctly aware, too, that he was in his own body again—impossible, certainly, he didn’t know how, but he was. Tired blue eyes, lacking the shine they’d carried for so many years, gazed down at plump white hands that had barely done a day’s work in their life. One hand went to his throat, feeling at the familiar cravat there; it was all familiar, every bit of it, a familiarity he’d been longing for and yet it all seemed wrong.

_I am here, and he is not. I have myself, I_ am _myself, and he is absent and gone and d—_

His cardinal fear.

It always came back to him, always circled around and swooped down and stole from his earth. Magnus found himself laughing weakly, uncontrollably, falling to his knees in the salty water as tears began to fall like rain.

“Not him, not him too, not P—”

He couldn’t even say the name. A bitter sob wrenched itself from his lips.

“Leave me be! LEAVE ME BE!”

The Eye was torn from his body, from his soul, like a flap of skin torn from an open wound; he screamed in agony, wallowing in the pain of it all and begging the clouded skies for death. He had never begged before, or wanted so deeply to die, but the world seemed to be tinged differently. It was all strange and foreign and bitterly painful.

Numbly, he rose to his feet; every sensation was dulled and muted, as if he were drowning. He was drowning—drowning in sorrow, drowning in his own self-pity and hatred for the world and a grief he never thought he’d feel.

“...Peter? Peter, I know you’re there…”

_He can’t be gone. I am here. I cannot be here without him._

Blindly, Jonah took to wandering the Lonely; the Eye couldn’t get to him there, and the hold of the Watcher’s Crown broke down as he drove himself to near death. The bond was severed and cut, the withdrawal from the Eye sending Jonah into a spiral of hunger and weakness, but he would not stop. He never stopped looking. It was all he had, in the end, and perhaps that made it his fate—to roam the Lonely, forever searching for what he would never find. He forced himself to believe that Peter wasn’t gone, that the captain was alive and well and out there somewhere in the vast expanse of water and land the Lonely had become; the damage to his psyche was so great that it was likely permanent, something that had changed him forever.

Once, he found Peter’s cap floating in the water. It became a constant in his hands, clutched in shaking fingers as a hoarse warble of a voice repeatedly called out the name of the owner of the cap.

_He is out there, looking for me. I will find him. I_ will _!_

“I’m coming, Peter. I’m coming.”

~XXXXX~

When Peter Lukas awoke, it was to searing pain throughout his entire body and a gnawing hunger from the entity he served. He barely had time to take in the surroundings of the Lonely before he’d phased back into the real world in search of a new victim to sate the appetite.

One poor soul had made the mistake of asking him for directions, and they were gone. Relief shuddered through his veins as the throbbing dizziness went away and calm took its place; he next found himself a sandwich and some coffee, enough to tide him over for a while.

_I ought to find Jonah. He’ll have known, of course, whether or not that rotten little Archivist told him._

He had expected, of course, to be met with little fanfare at the Institute, but there was even less reaction than he had imagined. He thought nothing of it—until he had asked an intern where he could find Elias Bouchard, and the girl had told him that she was new and had only heard tales of the man who was supposedly her boss as he had been absent for quite some time.

It was like a cold stake to the heart. Lukas was more than aware that Jonah was hardly the sort of person to take his own life, and Elias Bouchard’s body had been in fine shape—there was no reason for him to have body-hopped again so soon, and even if he had done so the new man would have been around the Institute. There was part of him, however, that did fear the worst—the part of him that looked at the scar on his palm, from Jonah’s letter-opener, or that felt the scar on his chest from where an angry Jonah had stabbed him with part of a broken cocktail glass—, and it scared him to admit that he was frightened.

It was only upon his walk home that things began to clear up. The fog of the Lonely had descended upon his shoulders, obscuring him from passers-by and thanking him—in the warmest way the Lonely could—for the two _lovely_ people he’d taken. It had been such a _wonderful_ treat, really, to have _both_ at the same time. So much _fear_ , and—

_...two?_

Peter’s eyes widened.

“...Jonah. It’s got Jonah, I’ve—”

He disappeared right off of the street and found himself in the familiar waves with no time to waste, sloshing forward at the fastest run he could muster.

“Jonah! JONAH!”

_Let him be safe. Let him be alive._

“Bring me Jonah Magnus!” he yelled into the air, throwing his arms up. “BRING HIM TO ME!”

With an angry growl, he forced the Lonely to contort to his wishes. The landscape around him seemed to bend; waves flickered and glitched and disappeared for whole seconds as his powers churned and a bead of sweat rolled down his face and everything shifted.

When it all stopped, when all was quiet, he was not alone. Ten feet in front of him was the rail-thin body of Jonah Magnus, the man in question stumbling along and calling out weakly for Peter.

“I’m here, Jonah, I’m here!”

All the words in the world could not have helped Peter as he ran to Jonah’s side, nausea pooling in his stomach as the blood in his veins turned to terror and ice. Even though he had never before seen the man in his original body, he knew he’d found who he was looking for. The Lonely never lied about that—it didn’t have a reason to.

“Is that you, Peter?” Jonah whispered, gazing at him with a glassy-eyed stare. He still clutched the hat in his hands, as if it were his only lifeline; Peter slowly tugged the weathered object away and placed it on his own head.

_He’s so thin, Christ almighty. Has he—_

His heart skipped a beat.

_He’s been here. He hasn’t fed the Eye. For however long I’ve been gone, he’s been here calling for me._

He didn’t need Jonah’s gift of the Beholding to confirm what he knew. As the slightly shorter man buckled and collapsed, he effortlessly caught him and lifted him to his chest.

“I’m here, Jonah. It’s me. It’s Peter,” he whispered helplessly, and his voice cracked and his cheeks burned with shame. “I’m—Jonah, I’m—”

“Please come back to me, Peter,” Jonah whimpered, and the words echoed through the Lonely in a way that tore Peter’s heart in two and drew an angry yell from his lips.

“LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE!” he screamed, voice booming, and it was the first time he could remember being angry. “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO HIM!”

_Look what I’ve done. This is my god, my entity. I am the avatar, and I brought this upon him. He’s crazy with grief. His mind’s been broken by my entity._

“Jonah, please, come back to me,” he whispered, tears pricking at his eyes. “Please, just—rest, if you must, but come back to me.”

Jonah’s eyes closed at that, a contented smile coming over his face as he slipped into the blisses of an unconsciousness he had chased since the day his world had stood still. Peter placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, sniffling quietly.

“You’re not here, but I’ll bring you back,” he said softly. “I promise, Jonah. I’ve come back for you, and you’ll come back for me.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, the pair vanished from the mist. Anyone walking down the street in London that night would have recounted a most strange tale: a tall, broad man, carrying the almost-lifeless body of another man who was sickly thin, hurrying down the sidewalk. Fog nipped at his heels; mist swirled around his head. It was odd, yes, but not that odd on the outside to most Londoners.

The feeling, though? Nobody forgot that.

Nobody forgot the feeling that accompanied the two—a rolling, wave-like loneliness that battered the soul and demanded submission, and an anguish so strong the world seemed to cease all actions in its face. It was a feeling that demanded to be obeyed, and when it was gone you felt the need to apologize to yourself for the hurt the emotion had caused.

But Peter Lukas never forgave himself.


End file.
